At this there was an outcry, for Wilkie was a great favourite with his contemporaries. And Robert Mayne was called on to cite instances that illustrated his contention, that poetry should be in picture, and painting be found in verse.
“I do not say there should be; this is what I ask.”
“But you must define poetry, Sir,” said Miss Ridge, “or, at least, what it means to you.”
“Poetry, Madam, is the perception of what is beautiful, not the perception of what is humorous or sad. And I find this poetry in the pictures by Cotman, because he shows the wide sky, and the warm red earth, and poplars topping the horizon. The limbs of trees, and the flight of clouds, and quiet field labour. Such pictures give a ‘temperate show of objects that endure.’ And this must please those who seek the perception of the beautiful. Can you compare such a picture to one that shows a village tavern, a debtor’s prison, or an errand-boy? Equally true, you may reason. It may be. But beautiful--no.
“Look at the pictures by Bonington; cannot you see the sands glisten, and hear the waves? And the fishwife who is walking there, do we not know that as she steps the sands press white beneath her, to darken as the moisture re-asserts itself beneath her footfall, by the margin of the sea? And the sea-piece by Turner. There is the sting of the brine in it, the very sound of the wind in the rigging. And the picture by Constable. Isn’t Fuseli right when he exclaims, ‘Come, let me fetch my umbrella; I’m off to see the Constables,’ for isn’t the rain just about to be freed from that sagging cloud, that has those planes of blue behind it?
[Illustration: _Turner._ APPROACH TO VENICE.]
“And then the pictures by De Wint and Turner. So huge in design, so simple in mass, yet if one looks into them, one finds sheep, and cows, and tiny horses in the distance, towing barges along canals. And in some corner of foreground, deep woods, and white doves, simply swinging through the air. Or, perhaps, a man on a horse riding up a lawn, with greyhounds at his heels, or tall foxgloves in deep shadow. Then in Turner’s pictures, his Venice scenes; small figures getting into barges--just a dab of the brush, and a dot of pink for the head--and all the vast canal with the sun dipping into it. And towering ships, away in the haze.